Wizards win palyoff opener

eric youngeyoung@ricentral.com[2]
WEST WARWICK — All it took was one inning for the West Warwick Wizards to erase the memories of its late regular season struggles, including a loss in the regular season finale to the Exeter West Greenwich Scarlet Knights, Wednesday’s opponent.
With the game tied at 2-2, West Warwick exploded for 11 runs in the bottom of the fourth inning to win going away 13-2 in five innings.
First baseman Richard Grenier Jr. got the rally started with a double to right, the first of eight hits in the inning.
“That was a big hit. Nobody expects me to come up with extra base hits, I usually hit singles. I knew when I got the hit that it was headed towards the gap and I thought I should try and go for two and it worked out for me,” Grenier Jr. admitted. “That hit really got everyone up and involved. It seemed like everyone after that got a hit.”
“It’s never easy for someone to be the son of a coach. Especially, someone who has been coaching here for close to twenty years,” West Warwick manager Richard Grenier said. “(Grenier Jr.) works hard. He certainly doesn’t have the speed of a track star, but baseball is about hand-eye coordination and he has improved tremendously over the course of the season.”
Grenier Jr.’s hit set the table for the Wizards, who had been held in check up to that point.
Andrew Hebert, John Morrison, Ryan Lawton, and Domenic Bisceglio each collected RBI hits as part of the fourth inning onslaught.
“We were stringing along the hits real well. I just wanted to do my part and keep it going and we all just kept hitting after that. It was great that everyone was involved,” said Wizards’ starting pitcher Ryan Lawton.
Scarlet Knights’ starter Kyle Bonn was relative effective through the first three innings, allowing five hits and two runs.
But the senior lefthander appeared to fatigue and lost command of his curveball, which allowed West Warwick to sit back and swing away freely at his fastball.